Management at the Jade Bistro cafe on Boduthakurufaanu Magu have apologised to any Maldivians that may have been offended by a “festive” lunch promotion offered over the Christmas period that has since attracted protests and the attention of police in the capital.
The offer was criticised as a Christmas celebration by religious groups like the Adhaalath Party and the Islamic Foundation of the Maldives (IFM), which have both praised local police for yesterday stopping the promotion at the café. …
”The place was decorated for Christmas with items related to the celebration, police arrested one person from the cafe to clarify more information about the case. They were also released last night,” said Shiyam….
[T]he leader of Adhaalath Party, Sheikh Hussein Rasheed, said that celebrating Christmas was unlawful and that it was a responsibility of the police to stop those events. … IFM President Ibrahim Fauzy added that it was prohibited in Islam to allow non-Muslims celebrate their holidays in places where Muslims live.
”It is unconstitutional and prohibited by many laws at the same time,” said Fauzy.
A group of protesters also gathered near the café last night to express disapproval for celebrating Christmas.

The latest bloody attack on Iraq’s Christians was brutal in its simplicity. Militants left a bomb on the doorstep of the home of an elderly Christian couple and rang the doorbell.
When Fawzi Rahim, 76, and his 78-year-old wife Janet Mekha answered the doorbell Thursday night, the bomb exploded, killing them….
The bombing was among a string of seemingly coordinated attacks Thursday evening that targeted at least seven Christian homes in various parts of Baghdad that wounded at least 13 other people, a week after al-Qaida-linked militants renewed their threats to attack Iraq’s Christians. …
In the other attacks Thursday night, four bombings targeting Christians wounded six people. A stun grenade landed inside a Christian house in the Dora district in southern Baghdad, injuring three others, and a rocket hit a Christian home in downtown Baghdad, wounding one person.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but such attacks have generally been the work of Sunni militants linked to al-Qaida.
Deputy interior minister, Maj. Gen. Ahmed Abu Ragif, blamed Thursday’s attacks on “terrorists who expressed hatred of Iraq in general and of the Christians in particular,” Ragif said. The assailants’ aim was to “prevent our Christian brothers to celebrate the New Year,” he added.

You could say the world’s reaction to the war on Christians is ho-hum, if there were any reaction at all.
UPDATE: In Alexandria, at least five Christians were killed by a bomb, presumably placed by Muslims, as they emerged from a New Year’s mass.
FURTHER UPDATE: The death toll in Alexandria is now up to at least 21, with 80 injured.